We read this week that Tesco is planning to revisit the estate agency space in March with a relaunch of the ‘Tesco Property Market’. Readers of our blog will remember Tesco’s very ill-fated first forey into the space with a pure ‘sell it yourself’ offering in July of 2007. After traditional agents rose as one to protest, Tesco quickly dropped the plan – although not after having so badly damaged the reputation of Fish4Homes that this blog believes that Fish4 may now be holed below the water line. Our understanding of the new Tesco venture is that it will be based around individuals located in Tesco stores, providing some personal interaction with a website behind (rather like the TrailFinders in Selfridges in London - except rather less grand!).
So far so much better than what they tried before. But the venture still has some serious difficulties. Clearly the greatest of these is access to portals. It still seems very unlikely that RightMove will allow listings from the new Tesco platform, despite Tesco’s sabre rattling about taking legal action against RightMove (which seems to have gone rather quiet). If so, then the other ‘traditional’ portals will follow suit. So this makes Globrix (www.globrix.com) a potential kingmaker in the future evolution of the market. We firmly believe that Globrix is likely to gain serious market share quickly as soon as it is released from beta testing and feels the full benefit of the News Corp. marketing budget. Although Globrix listings are ‘indexed’ from the web we are uncertain whether or not they will display Tesco’s listings. Our understanding is that at the moment Globrix is leaning against allowing Tesco listings, again for fear of generating bad will amongst traditional agents. In all honesty, we wonder why they are so worried, given that traditional (and online) agents simply cannot wait to have a high quality alternative to RightMove et al which is funded from advertising and not their stretched marketing budgets. But it does seem that Globrix have the power to make or break the new Tesco venture – and what they decide may have serious ramifications for years to come
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
What is going to happen to Tesco and Rightmove?
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9 comments:
All very interesting, but forget all the big boys who can only see a quick buck. Now the market has taken a downturn the bigger backed boys are going to feel the pinch. Who wants to pay a monthly of fixed subsciption to Tesco when they fell at the first hurdle?
Rightmove, propertyfinder, primelocation and find-a-property seem to be trying to out do each other with naff late night adverts on digital channels.
Whats wrong with a true portal that encourages people to keep coming back not just for house sales but for local and national services. A good example is property-england.com. It doesn't advertise but provides a cost effective solution BY WORD OF MOUTH.
Murddock may be able to throw money at his latest foray into a new market but it will fail due to the fact its still in beta and if the shareholders do not see a quick retuen it will be canned, same as zoomf which looks like my cat designed it or a six year old.
What the market needs is a patnership between agents and the online community. Look at property-england and you will see what I mean. They only charge £100 per anum + VAT.
You describe Globix as the kingmaker, I disagree, just another fat cat trying new markets.
Plus who are Brightsale another interested party?
Regards
Faye
Just for the record BrightSale has no special interest in the 'portals wars' -n that we are an independant estate agent. We do, however, certainly resent paying a monthly subscription to RightMove, Primelocation, PropertyFinder, FindaProperty, Fish4Homes and others to advertise the same darn properties to (essentially) the same people. We certainly have an 'interest' in the market converging on one portal and if that can be funded by advertising revenue then so much the better.
We also think the jibe at Zoomf was a little uncalled for. We actually quite like Zoomf's branding - and compared with the new PrimeLocation it is pretty user friendly!
I am interested to keep in touch in the developments in the UK and especially the new Globrix site - is this true that it is News Corp funded? - if so that would make it interesting with propertyfinder a JV with News Corp through the Australian REA Group?
Whilst I can understand why Globrix may be apprehensive about featuring Tesco's effective FSBO listings, but with the predicted success of this site then traffic will be the dictating factor as modeled through Zillow which effectively does FSBO through Make Me an Offer and still gets agents to advertise and feed their listings.
Brightsale said;
We do, however, certainly resent paying a monthly subscription to RightMove, Primelocation, PropertyFinder, FindaProperty, Fish4Homes and others to advertise the same darn properties to (essentially) the same people. We certainly have an 'interest' in the market converging on one portal and if that can be funded by advertising revenue then so much the better.
I may be missing the point here but, yes we are sick of paying £1000's for a very unsophisticated property window with the portals listed in your reply. So why would you want one portal without the need for competion?
I'm sure they would without other alternatives screw up the idea of harmonising with traditional agents needs the same way as Rightmove and others have messed up.
Many independants (and that is what you claim to be)need help with their online strategies so they can work with the traditional way the write business.
What alot of people dont realise is who Rightmove is. The parnership that is Rightmove already is part of a building society, Part of the largest estate agency group in the UK and part owner of other portals. Its a cartel.
Try looking at a true independant like www.property-england.com (funded by advertising) not promoting an even bigger market con like Tesco's and Globix
Faye from Property-England - you seem to be rather scathing of everyone which is a strange?. Property-England is not a serious website and cannot be considered a competitor to the existing portals (there are hardly any properties on it for a start). Globrix is also funded by advertising and charges no fees, it also has virtually every property in the country online and a fantastic interface. The fact that R Murdoch invested simply means that they have the budget and media power to take on the established portals who are overcharging agents. Why does that make it a con? Are you trying to say that any business that is successful enough to get funding is a con??
As managing director of www.property-england.com I would just like to say that "Faye" is not connected with our company in any way.
Our website is growing fast with over 150,000 properties on todate. We do not charge the agents anything as we make our money from adverising.
Regards Tim Watson
I think we have heard enough about Property England now. We are in favour of all portals that add value in a cost effective way. We happen to think that the Globrix model offers the best value for estate agents, and we hope it will prevail in the market place. But we also believe that the interests of customers and agents are served best by healthy competition between portals. And therefore new entrants like Property England, whatever we may think of their chances of success, are also to be welcomed.
Thankyou for your comments and I to agree that customers and agents are served best by healthy competition between portals including yours.
Regards Tim Watson
Thanks Tim.
For the sake of clarity though, BrightSale is not a portal, we are a national estate agents.
Andy Etches
CEO
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